May the strings make you smile, May they always remind you of me
When others merely had one song (maybe two), he had an entire playlist. Dozens of songs that made him come to mind, make him hard to forget. With each change of tempo, each inflection of tone, chord progression, whisper, or guttural groan.
Continue reading
Darling won’t you ease my worried mind
We used to be best friends, >>> and I. I didn’t think anything of us being together, until I was about fifteen. I had just started a new year in high school and decided that I was going to “up” my appearance a bit. I got a new hair do, upgraded my clothing, and tried my best to be a bit more “outgoing.” He decided to do the same. He bulked up a bit after playing football at his high school and decided to start shaving more and wearing more form-fitting clothes. Continue reading
“You’re either in love with what you do, or you’re not in love.”
These were the words that I read in the back of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. And it’s almost as though I cannot escape them. Isn’t this the universal truth about anything that you invest your time and energy into? You either love it or you don’t.
Sometimes I wonder if I’m halfassing my goals because I’m not in love with them. Maybe I’m just in love with the idea and not the action itself … just like those women who love weddings and the idea of love but forget that they have to be in love and in a marriage the next day. Maybe…
After I finished Farenheit 451 I thought to myself, what would happen to us if there weren’t any books? What would happen to us, if we didn’t have a few words on a page to enlighten, to inspire, to sympathize? What if we only had bright lights and sounds to comfort us? Immediately, I thought I’d go insane. Even though I do not read as much as I would like to, the idea of having my face glued to a colorful box 24/7/52 just made me lose it internally. Can you imagine how mushy our brains would become?
But then I thought about the bigger issue … the issue of having a cause to fight for. And I wondered if I was “fighting” hard enough to become what I ultimately want to be. I know that my writing isn’t up to par, and that half the time (well, in the past few months, rather) my thoughts are disjointed … slightly incoherent. But does that mean I should stop all together — or just fight harder?
“They must write you. They must control you,” said Bradbury. “They plot me. I never control. I let them have their lives. ”
Word.
“I just let them speak. I don’t control them; I simply give them a podium and let them talk to me. All my good stories are told to me by the characters. I don’t write my stories. They write me.”
I used to just sit and wait. And then all of a sudden, a wave would wash over me. I would just start typing and typing away and next thing you know, there were characters on a page. And they were doing things. And saying things. And loving people. And kissing people. And killing people. The experience was like … a movie playing in the dark recesses of my mind and my hands were trying ever so hard to catch every moment, every detail so that it was out of my mind and onto a medium that everyone else could see. But it seems as though the movie theater is closed. And No matter how hard I try to pry it open, the boards are nailed down tight.
“You have to believe in that self as a writer, or you shouldn’t be doing it.”
Is it that my belief is not as strong … that I lack the appropriate amount of faith? Three unfinished novels, an unfinished novella and an unfinished book of short stories. People say that stories cannot write themselves, but I believe they can.
Maybe my characters have abandoned me until I am ready once again to give them all their much needed attention. Maybe they’re waiting until I fully believe that I am the one to tell their stories.
Hello ALL!
First, I apologize for my absence. For the past few weeks, I’ve been working on another project of mine which I was hoping to do a little bit better with all the energy that I’ve been putting into it. Now that the hardest part is over, I’m turning some of my attentions back to WRITING.
Now, back to reality: NANOWRIMO! Continue reading
The water felt nice that day.
We journeyed to the farther end of the beach where other locals hung out, away from the tourists who populated the areas that caught the most sun and had the most access to everything they could buy with their hard earned foreign money.
We laid in the sand for what seemed like hours…the warm kernels exfoliating our skin, my legs thrown carelessly and lovingly across his, my eyes closed, soaking up the feeling of cool air faintly trailing over our bodies. Continue reading
Hello Darling Followers,
This update comes from a rather not so happy and doleful place. I’ll get straight to the point:
I haven’t added anything new to what should’ve been the novel I “completed in a summer.” It seems that while I may have the entire plot mapped out to perfection, the words just aren’t coming to me. And though I hate to make excuses, I find that nothing is moving forward because I really don’t have much time to breath, with everything else sucking up all my energy. I know, I know – “if you want something bad enough, you’ll make time for it,” but this everything around me is just like a sinkhole of concentration. I intended on selling some of my hobby pieces this summer and that is constantly being pushed further and further into the future as new circumstances are constantly arising and because of this, the writing aspect of my life which I want to become vastly devoted to is taking a dive because of it. *sigh* I could stay up late and write until the crack of dawn, but I get so bogged down mentally, that nothing happens.
I was supposed to go to a place not too far away for a day of relaxation and pure typing, but that didn’t happen. If I have my way, I’ll go soon…if…
I spoke with a friend the other day who told me that I should release some of my work, over a course of time, bit by bit to gain an audience and feedback and while I’ve started that with this post, I haven’t got much of a response which obviously has left a bad taste in my mouth. Is writing really for me?
Anyhow, I will try to continue on…and I’ll be doing so with a bit of “Erotic Fan-Fiction” but not on novels or T.V. shows or anything like that. Nope, just on men. Men, will be the source of this fiction- famous men…or at least men I find incredulously handsome and would love to get my hands on but know (in the front of my mind) that I never will. I got the idea from Tina (of Bob’s Burgers) cause she does the same…but with her friends…and zombies.
I’ve always wanted to do it, but thought that in a world with so much social media and googling and shiz, people would think that it was a real story but, now I don’t really care. I’ve been dreaming of these guys too frequently to not indulge in a little fantasy and well…get some writing done.
The first of these Fan-Fiction pieces will be called “The Elf & His Princess,” a mock interview piece that I wrote in high school about me and Orlando Bloom (when he was hot off the LOTR circuit). It’s long…and it’s out there, but it was based on like a four-part dream I had for several weeks so…yeah.
w/love
-Alja
Here’s the opening to a story I wrote many moons ago, entitled ‘Til Death.’ Please read, comment, and enjoy! If you enjoy, I will continue to leak excerpts from this story as well as other stories!
The duvet of rain clouds above the city shadowed the town in shades of grey and charcoal. The icy cold rain showers covered every inch of every steel building, brick house, concrete slab and glass window. Sitting in the dark of his 50th floor studio apartment, he pondered about what to do next, who to go to, who to speak to. There was no chance in hell that he could be saved at this point in time and he resigned himself to the idea that no one would be willing to save him. Straightening his burgundy silk tie embroidered with yellow diamonds, he brushed his hands along the buttons of his white cotton dress shirt. He swirled the glass of scotch in his right hand that was casually draped over the arm of the leather recliner. The ice clinked along the sides and brought his mind some ease.
He looked out the window. The thud from the droplets had grown louder. He could barely see the city through all the rain, just streaks of water flowing down the glass. Slowly, the shadow of a man began to appear on the fogging window
What a shitty day to die he thought.
And with that said, Jack spun his gold wedding band around his wedding finger. He could feel the cool mouth of the steel revolver’s barrel pressed against the back of his head. Without any hesitation, he said “Get on with it,” and the last thing Jack heard was the sound of the gun going off.
I want you, the right way…
My friends and I were looking for a table to sit at and saw a couple empty chairs at a table off to the corner. We were hungry and didn’t want to miss all the mumbo jumbo speeches about the benefits of higher education. Continue reading
All is full of love…
Damn this Bjork song.
Is there such as thing as being addicted to wanting love? I know that there are ‘attention-whores’ but are there ‘love-whores’ out there?
You’ll be given love
For a great deal of my life, I’ve wanted to love and be loved. Being that I was the weird ‘odd-girl-out’ it obviously took a long time to start being noticed for the right reasons. Continue reading
“You look like…a perfect fit…”
I came across his profile online one night, out of sheer boredom. He was a fellow high school alum who was incredibly smart and just as handsome. I think my new found brazen attitude towards meeting people online was getting the best of me. That or I was just trying to battle my loneliness. Either way, I sent him a message and he responded and we corresponded back and forth.
“Excuse me, missy! Now all of a sudden you’re chasing guys?” said one of my girlfriends. Continue reading
AljaTheWriter 